Former Critics Put Up With None of Your Emotionally Restrained BS at Their Album Release Show
On Saturday, September 6th, Former Critics closed their three-show ‘I Wanna Be Dramatic’ album release tour at The Loving Touch in Ferndale, Michigan. The show, which was supported by Swanton, Fremont Pike, Antighost, and Grey Matter, was a tour de force. By celebrating the release of their new album and their 10th anniversary as a band with a lineup of their choosing, Former Critics showed the variety and strength of the Michigan Emo scene.
SWANTON
Swanton’s deadpan humor paired perfectly with the mathy, riffy power punk sounds. Having only released two songs officially in late 2024, they are a newer member of the scene, but definitely a group to keep your eyes on. As an aside, being an educator in my day time made me deeply appreciate the band asking the crowd if there were any questions, not once, but twice during their set. You have to check for understanding frequently to make sure your students don’t get lost.
FREMONT PIKE
This was not my first time seeing Fremont Pike live, I am a proud member of the 2025 Motor City Pride concrete steps mosh pit, and seeing them indoors did not disappoint. The band oozes fun, hitting you with classic power pop punk, an infectious attitude towards the music, and a kick of joy in a genre typically defined by focus on sadness and struggle. The first-ever mid-set “Fremont Pike Standstill Wall of Death” was a pit move so wild you need to see to believe. Their song “Champagne of Beers (Breakfast of Champions)” never fails to get me moving and has some fun self-referential writing in the lyrics showing care and attention for the sound and meaning of their music.
ANTIGHOST
Next up was Antighost, whom I have actually written about before in my review of PUGFEST III. The band brings a grungy, dark, and aggressive sound that feels pulled straight from the ‘90s, but can also swing into the more gentle, almost crooning tones that true grunge fans crave. Their standout track and fan favorite, “I Can’t Feel The Sun,” rounded out the end of their set, which was fitting for the “dramatics” of the evening. They are a band that for sure never misses, and unlike me, if you ever have a chance to see them, do not sleep on it.
GREY MATTER
The final act before the headline Former Critics was the punk-ska Grey Matter from Lansing. As a two-stepper myself, Grey Matter brought together all the best parts of the Ska-punk genre, while not relying heavily on the more classic beat and brass conventions. This meant that they had a unique, almost Jazz-like element to the highly political heart-pounding hardcore punk they put out. Also, I love a good mid-song spoken word break about the importance of radical safe spaces, and if you do too, I definitely recommend their song “Dang! (Love Yourself).”
FORMER CRITICS
Lastly, the headling Former Critics launched their new album ‘I Wanna Be Dramatic’ with all the flair and theater one would expect from an album about letting the emotional mind take control. The frenetic album opener, “Mass Hysteria”, is the perfect table-setting for an album interested in the confusion, panic, and emotion of the modern day. Focusing on the modern fixation with the apocalypse, this song underlines the ridiculousness of wasting your little time on Earth fretting over how it will end. This lead right into the album’s penultimate track “Dead End,” shifting focus from wasting one’s time worrying about death, to wasting one’s time at a job they can’t bear to be present at, knowing that all this work is to support an oppressive class of owners.
Taking a more introspective turn, “Black Hole” provides a look into what the Former Critics feel is pushing them past their critical mass. The song focuses on the nearly inevitable process of bringing in the things one loves, realizing the responsibility of that bringing in, and the inward collapse of that anxiety against the outward push of the desire to just be. As a Former Astronomer, the song’s ties and attention to the physical process of the death of a star, and its use as a metaphor for the way our external lives can impact our internal life, is powerful.
Unsurprisingly, the songs “Loser” and “Fist Fight” are the Former Critics at their raging peak. “Loser” takes aim at the wave of scummy, Alpha-obsessed, male manipulators that have stormed our collective consciousness (and hopefully not your DMs) and calls them out for what they are: losers. “Fist Fight” is much less direct in who it is about, but much clearer in the consequences of it. This song sounds exactly like its title would imply: punchy, punky, and bursting at the seams with anger.
“Can You Feel It?” and “Revenge” Played nicely together, the former expressing the feeling of being trapped in your anger at another person, and the latter explaining the dangers faced when dealing with a hunter scorned. Entering the home stretch of the show, I felt a partiality to the driving bassline at the start of “Liar” and paired with its searing indictments of deceptions and gaslighting it makes for an instant emo classic.
“Clover”, the second single released between “Can You Feel It?” and “Black Hole” presents the listener with the feeling of being so tied down by your own pain that you can’t bear to handle it yourself, and delivers sonically on the angsty lyrical themes with grungy guitar riffs.
The band finished off their album play with the combination of “BYE2U”’s swinging send off to manipulators and abusers, the manic thesis of the album, and the show itself, “I Wanna Be Dramatic.” This is an album that lives up to its name, pulls no punches, and will not tolerate any manipulative, downplayed, manipulative, or just straight loser behavior. The show they put on to celebrate was much the same, in-your-face, emotional, no-holds-barred Michigan-Style Emo.
Stream the new album ‘I Wanna Be Dramatic’ on Spotify.